Democracy: THE ONLY WAY?

You can have democracy and socialism at the same time. I can't even think of a socialist country who isn't a democracy.

 

in theory democracy is great but in reality there is no such thing as absolute. and you have to take into consideration the people, the culture, etc.

 

Like Rockbox said. Socialism and Democracy are matched most of the time. They certainly aren't mutally exclusive.

 

Most of the so-called socialist countries were not true socialist. How can a China, let's say 50 years ago, claim itself as socialist? You need to have very strong economy and very good moral base among your residents, then you can start to think of socialism. For me, those Northern European countries are true socialist countries. We all know that Communist is just Utopia, but it's too bad it became a bad word. Those self-claimed communist countries did bad things doesn't mean that communist is bad, it just means that those are not communist countries, and there will no one, just because our greedy nature of human being.

Democracy on the other hand, if you look at the history carefully, it first emerged in slave society. Because of the common interest among slave owners, they shared democracy among themselves. Once the slavery is gone, the social base and knowledge of democracy easily took it over, and turned the society into democracy. Feudal society, on the contrary, is central authorized, and normally there is a strong emperor. Although there is a high class in those land owners, they serve under the emperor, so there is simply no soil for democracy. In other words, the transition is much more difficult. However, like Churchill said (sorry, I forgot the original words), democracy is not good, but it's the best choice.

 

Last option should have read whatever the RICH people want.

 

During France's experimentations with democracy, neighboring monarchs would try to re-install a king, for their own good as it were. Monarchy was insisting on its own replication. Now, the power has shifted to the democratic form and now democracy tries to replicate itself through international meddling, again ostensibly for the good of the people. Communism was spread to Eastern Europe in the same fashion (except I don't think Stalin had any delusions about 'the good of the people'). Like begets like.

 

No successful nation can do so without capitalism. That combined with liberty is the only way to run a successful nation.

 

In an ideal world I am a federalist socialist. That system not only is a democracy, but a direct democracy.

JV,

Well said. Agrred about Stalin, but what about Trotsky/Lenin. I would say "yes" on Trotsky and "sort of" on Lenin. I would wager your answer would be more informed, though.

 

I agree "socialism" as practiced and democracy are compatible. Communism is not compatible with democracy.

As has been said most "socialist" coutries like Sweden are democratic. Even some "communist " countries like China are now moving toward a Swedish model. Swedes obviously have a largely capitalist economy.

Complicating matters is that for dishonest propaganda reasons the old style Russian type communists and their mirror image in the US the hard core conservatives, both wanted to label Russia as "socialist". The Russians as they wanted to claim that they were democratic and the US conservatives who need to claim that having free college education and health care is only possible if you have the old Russian system. T

The conservatives have always feared that average Americans would prefer national health and government scholarships for college, longer vacations and other benefits that the Western Europeans have. The wealthy foot the bills for the think tanks that support the conservative and libertarian position papers as they fear that they would have their taxes raised and would have to pay their workers more.


The last real utopians are the radical rightists, who have a near religious belief in their theoetical economic models. They are trying to go against modern experience that shows a mixed economy is best for the average peson.

 

There are numerous paths to prosperity. Let the citizens decide.

 

I think the attitudes of Trotsky and Lenin would have to be recorded by date. Pre-Revolution, I would say that both were sincere believers in the World Revolution. In fact, I think they had a rather passive attitude towards communism in other countries on the ideological assumption that social forces mandated that they'd eventually come around. That is, they wouldn't need to impose Communism because the people would eventually rise up and establish Communism for themselves (and, they did seem somewhat justified by communist revolutions southeast Asia during/after WWII). Trotsky signed a rather generous peace deal with Germany, giving up a lot of land, partly on the assumption that it wouldn't really matter in the long-run (when Germany reached a higher stage of social development).

I think a lot of their idealism withered during the civil war, and probably moreso in Trotsky simply because he was alive and functioning throughout (he recovered some of that idealism after he was ousted). Their communism had to make many, many concessions to the realities on the ground and they had to think a lot more about their own survival and about shoring up their power base and less about 'the vanguard,' 'the will of the people' and all that jazz. So, a 1930s Trotsky may have taken the same path Stalin did, but a Trotsky from 1915 would not have.

(Leon Trotsky, btw, was credited a couple of years ago for a couple of Hollywood silent films before the October Revolution. But, it seems now that they're saying it wasn't really him in the movies.)

 

Have you seen any of the Russian propaganda silent movies? They are really quite fascinating. It's been a few years since I've seen any, but they were really bizarre, and very slanted of course. I liked watching them though.

 

Slanted? I don't know what you're talking about!

I think we're getting too far off topic. Sorry for the tangent and then the tangent to the tangent, RR.

To answer your question, the people's will is a changing thing. It is possible for this will to be to eliminate elections. But, that may later change with little recourse available. I'd take an example from Saddam's early years, but I know little about them, so I'll have to return to the trusty old USSR. In 1922, it could be said (and I would say) that the Bolshevik government was a legitimate one. It was a cause that over 5 million men enlisted to fight for -- much greater than the opposition. The revolutionary fervor ran a good deal higher than an American would think. But, it was essentially an oligarchy, which meant that when that legitimacy took a dive in the '30s, the only recourse was revolution, which was by that time almost futile.

In that regard, we did Iraq a favor by casting off an oppressor they could not get rid of themselves. At least, I think they wanted to be rid of him (on average). Elections provide a great barometer. But, at the same time, I don't think legitimacy is impossible without them. Louis XVI had legitimacy problems, but Louis XIV did not. If instead of electing a Saddam clone who abolished elections and oppressed the people, they elected a Sun King who abolished elections and led the country to unprecedented prosperity, influence, justice and equality -- would the lack of elections rob him of legitimacy?

 

I couldn't vote for any of the choices. I think that there are a couple of models that haven't really been given a fair shake that are not represented.

Oligarchy is one. Wouldn't it be great if the people in charge of various fields of the government were actually experts in those fields. Instead we have lawyers in charge of health care reform (Clinton) and businessmen in charge of foreign policy (Bush).

How about good old fashioned anarchy. What if there were no governments in the world. That may seem like a bad idea, and it probably is because a) there would be a tremendous abount of crime and small scale violence, and b) it wouldn't last as soon there would be petty tyrants popping up all over the place. On the other hand, there would not have been a WWI or WWII without national governments. Maybe just a return to city states.

Feudalism is an interesting system. I have read that surfs in feudal times worked much less than people work now. Basically, the person on the rung above you gives you a reasonable quota to meet, you work to pay that off, plus enough to support yourself. In return you get a place to live, a job to provide for your lord and yourself, and defense against attackers. It kind of reminds me of the mob, only not illegal and with less whacking of the low level guys. Probably better suited to simple agrarian societies than the high tech world of today, though it hasn't been tried to the best of my knowledge.

In the end, I think of the governments in existence today, representative democracy is probably the best choice. That is more because it is the lesser evil than that it is an ideal system.

 

Wait... aren't we a Republic? I thought a democracy involved citizens directly voting on specific issues, with no legislature of representatives.

 

ever since Jan 20, 2001, we have been a Kleptocracy

 

I'm not sure how but most people have economic and governmental systems all mixed up. True communism ( not the totaltitarian governments that have co-opted the term) not only could exist with, but would absloutley require a democratic republic government. People would elect representatives that would decide how to direct commerce, value contrubutions and distribute the collective wealth of goods and services. If it weren't for the inherent greed and laziness of human beings it would the most equitable economic system we could have. I would dare say, as an agonsitic, the most Christian form of economic system.

But that ain't gonna happen. So our democratic republican, socialism is about as close as men can get. Yes the US is a socialist state. Social security, progressive income tax, social services..it's just a matter of degree.

 

Red China has this...

Communistic Political system and Communistic/Capitalistic Economic system

Which means, they still have a Communistic political system, yet allow some aspects of capitalism. But, they still control it to a degree. The reason is because they recognize the benefit of globalization.